Johnson, Nancy (Nancy Lee), 1935-

<p>Nancy Elizabeth Lee Johnson (born January 5, 1935) is an American lobbyist and politician from the state of Connecticut. Johnson was a Republican member of the United States House of Representatives from 1983 to 2007, representing the 6th district and later the 5th District after reapportionment.</p>

<p>In September 2007, Johnson began lobbying for Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC in Washington, D.C.</p>

<p>Nancy Johnson was born in Chicago. She graduated from the University of Chicago Laboratory School (high school) in 1953, and from Radcliffe College of Harvard University in 1957. She attended the University of London's Courtauld Institute of Art in 1957 and 1958. She later moved to New Britain, Connecticut, where she lives today.</p>

<p>She was an active volunteer in the schools and social service agencies of her community, before serving in the Connecticut Senate from 1977 to 1983.</p>

<p>During her nearly quarter century in the House, Nancy L. Johnson became the first Republican woman to gain a seat on the influential Ways and Means Committee. Later, as the dean of the Connecticut delegation, she also served as the highest-ranking woman in the history of Ways and Means, where she became known as a diligent legislator deeply involved in the nation’s revenue policy. “When I was elected to, first the [state] senate, and then to Congress, it didn’t occur to me not to express my opinion or not to ask my questions,” Johnson remarked. “And I was good at asking questions. People often asked me to ask their question. Finally, I figured out that, actually, they needed to ask their question so I could ask my own.”</p>

<p>Nancy Johnson was born Nancy Elizabeth Lee in Chicago, Illinois, on January 5, 1935, the daughter of Noble W. Lee, dean of John Marshall Law School and an Illinois state legislator, and Gertrude Smith Lee, a high school history teacher and department chair. “She told us first to find a career and then to have a family,” Johnson recalled of her mother’s influence. “She was a woman before her time.” Johnson credited her family upbringing as the foundation for her own work ethic. “We didn’t have much money but we had an extraordinarily rich childhood. It was not only rich in content and spirit, but it was rich in work. If there was something to be done, we simply did it.” Johnson attended the Lab School at the University of Chicago, earned a bachelor’s degree from Radcliffe College in 1957, and went to the University of London Courtauld Institute from 1957 to 1958, where she studied art history. She married Theodore Johnson, an obstetrician, and they raised three daughters: Lindsey, Althea, and Caroline. They settled in New Britain, Connecticut, in the 1960s.</p>

<p>As her children grew older, Johnson began to ponder her future. “They were getting into high school, and I had worked eclectically—a waitress, a nurse’s aide—whatever was around to make a little money going through college. . . .I was just kind of at sea, like a lot of women are after they’ve been out of the workforce for 15 or 16, 17, 18 years.” An active member of the community, she had a knack for politics and enjoyed “meeting all kinds of people and seeing all kinds of structures and organizations.” At the urging of the local Republican committee, Nancy Johnson successfully ran for the Connecticut senate in 1976—the first Republican in more than 30 years to win from solidly Democratic New Britain. She served in the state senate until 1983. “I valued my time in the state senate tremendously,” she noted, because “you did all your own casework. You wrote all your own letters. You were it. And you learned a lot that way about how the law actually impacted people’s lives, and where the law needed to be changed or repealed.”</p>